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Opinion
Page 8 Friday, May 15, 1981 The Michigan Daily
The Michigan Daily
Vol. XCI, No. 8-S
Ninety Years of Editorial Freedom
Edited and managed by students
at the University of Michigan
Tanny of fear
TT IS CHIC for much of the world to damn
America as a metaphor for killing and
disorder-yet we remain rank amateurs in the
art of organized terrorism.
Although Wednesday's attempt upon Pope
John Paul II's life was apparently the work of a
single gunman, the accused assailant has a
record steeped in the most virulent forms of
terrorist brutality. He is endemic of thousands
of radical compatriots of both the Left and
Right, who stalk clandestinely through Western
Europe and South America-bombing, kidnap-
ping and murdering with pitiless efficiency.
This growing body of contemporary
fanaticism cuts across classic socio-economic
barriers-from the working-class gunmen of
the Irish Republican Army to the upper-middle-
class denizens of the Italian Red Brigades;
from the radical factions of the Palestine
Liberation Organization to the right-wing
"Death Squads" of Argentina and El Salvador.
The immevse political dichotomy separating
such groups coalesces under a single, nihilistic
principle: The world can be altered only
through violence.
This brute philosophy now holds entire
nations captive under a tyranny of fear; it is
one of America's saving graces that its mad
practitioners have not reached our shores.
Guns for butter
T HE FACT THAT yesterday's Senate
passage of the Reagan administration's
$136.5 billion defense budget had been univer-
sally predicted does nothing to ease one's
anguish over its easy success. This colossal ex-
penditure -- at a cost of more than $600 from
every man, woman, and child in America -
will only serve to fan the fires of a world-wide
arms race already threatening to spiral out of
control.
Out Pentagon apologists continue to milk
their alarmist rhetoric for all it's worth: We've
got to keep up with the Russians; it's better to
be safe than sorry. And so, in the name of
vigilance, the White House - with the slavering
acquiescence of Congress - continues to pam-
per our military establishment as though it
were a separate, infallible universe.
There is something repulsive about a
president who rages against the wasteful evils
of big government, then grants unlimited boon-
doggles to the very government establishment
most symbolic of financial extravagance and
bureaucratic overglut. Placed in the shadow of
such bald favoritism, Reagan's exhortations
Hypocricy rsmectsnopitic.aith.pged.
Hypocricy respects no political faith.
Detroit: One-trade town
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By Daniel Berger
Will Detroit ever pull itself out
of the doldrums? Most of us are
familiar with at least a few of the
ostensibly glamourous construe-
tion projects the city is pinning its
hopes upon to hold things
together.
- There's the Renaissance Cen-
ter: 12,000 people work in, its of-
fices - Closeto capacity in a city
suffering a chronic shortage of
office sspce. But the Center's
retail spaces suffer from a
myriad of vacancies, and few
customers are patronizing its
hotel, Why aren't the businesses
coming in?
There's the Cadillac Square
shopping center, costing $235
million. This mall will contain
space for three major depar-
tment stores, 100 satellite shops,
and 3,700 parking slots to ac-
commodate all the customers
they think they're going to get.
But so far only Hudson's has
committed itself. When will the
other two keystone stores
materialize?
Then there's the controversial
Poletown Cadillac plant. The city
has evicted its own residents
from more than 1,500 houses in an
effort to hold - not create, just
hold - 6,000 jobs. It cost Detroit
$125 million to clear the site, '$60
million to buy up the property,
and will cost up to $60 million
more in tax breaks to keep just
one factory of one company in
town.
Well-intentioned though they
may be, these big projects miss
the point. They are cosmetic at-
tempts to make .both residents
and investors feel better about
Detroit by giving consumers
shiny new spend money. But who
in Detroit is looking for new ways
to spend money? Who's even got,
it?
The private investment in-
volved in such gargantuan enter-
prises is far too concentrated.
Much of it comes from General
Motors, whose size and influence
should not blind usto the fact that
it is but one corporation - one in
a declining industry at that.
Must Detroit live or die with the
automobile? The city is the num-
ber two manufacturing center in
the nation - its $54 billion in 1980
revenue second only to that of
Chicago. Industry remains
Detroit's heart and soul, but the
turing also ranked high on the
rescue list, as did agricultural
machinery, robotics and general
high-technology development -
all viable alternatives and
remedies to Detroit's perpetual
stigma asa one-trade town.
Business booms in the Sunbelt
not because of the open sky and the
desert air, but because the
business climate is conducive to
investment and development.
Public works and public relations
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THE ONCE-BUSTLING Chrysler Dodge-Main plant in Hamtramck was
abandoned and torn down in 1980, symbolizing Detroit's woes.
auto artery is critically clogged
- the city ought to consider a
coronary bypass operation.
Meat packing, of all things,
seems to be a solid alternative. In
a recent study of what industries
Detroit ought to try to attract,
two economists discovered that
the meat packing industry's per
capita revenue in Detroit is only
half of what it should be. In ad-
dition, both wages and em-
ployment levels are consistently
high in the meat business -
enough to give the sagging city an
immediate and much-needed
economic transfusion.
Plastics and resin manufAc-
spending are not crucial to the
Sunbelt - the area thrives
through its own hard-headed
financial acumen.
Detroit ought to concentrate in
a similar direction - on making
itself attractive to business
economically, not cosmetically.
Flashy buildings and glamorous
mega-projects attract a lot of at-
tention, but they won't cure what
ails Detroit.
Parf two of a two-part
series.. Daniel Berger is a
graduate student in the Depar-
tment of Communication.
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